The long road for the Canadian right
By Mark Wegierski
web posted December 15, 2003
On December 6, 2003, the federal Progressive Conservatives
voted overwhelmingly (with 90 per cent of the vote at their
special national convention) to approve the merger with the
Canadian Alliance proposed on October 16, 2003 (which the
Canadian Alliance had approved by 96 per cent through a mail-
in ballot of party members -- whose results were announced on
December 5, 2003). The prospects of the broader Right in
Canada have brightened somewhat for the first time in decades.
Overcoming years of negativity, the Canadian Alliance (which
had emerged out of the Reform Party of Canada in 1998-2000),
and the federal Progressive Conservative party have now agreed
to unite themselves as the Conservative Party of Canada (the
former name of the Progressive Conservatives from decades
ago). The first leader of the new party will be selected March
19-21, 2004.
It is widely expected that the new Liberal Prime Minister of
Canada, Paul Martin, Jr., (who is succeeding Liberal Prime
Minister Jean Chretien, who won comfortable majorities in
1993, 1997, and 2000) will call an election sometime in Spring
2004.
However, four Progressive Conservative MPs have now left the
new Conservative party. Three of them, including Joe Clark, will
probably sit as independents. Joe Clark, Canada's Prime
Minister for nine months in 1979-1980 (he came to power with
a minority government, that was subsequently defeated in an
election which ensued out of the government's loss of a major
vote in the House of Commons) has appeared to be a perennial
"spoiler" in Canadian politics. Selected again as leader of the
federal Progressive Conservative party in 1998, he did all he
could to
frustrate some kind of accommodation with the Canadian
Alliance.
As indicated by its full name, the Canadian Reform-Conservative
Alliance, it had been formed specifically to bring the federal
Progressive Conservatives into the fold. Had a merger occurred
around 1999, the results of the election of 2000 might have been
considerably different. As it was, the Canadian Alliance won 66
seats (all but two from Western Canada) (with 25 per cent of
popular vote), and the Progressive Conservatives won 12 seats
(9 of them from the Atlantic Maritime region) (with 12 per cent
of the popular vote). The Liberal Party won 172 of the 301 seats
in the federal Parliament, with 41 per cent of the total votes cast
in the country. The Bloc Quebecois won 38 seats (with 11 per
cent of the popular vote), and the New Democratic Party
(Canada's social democrats), 13 seats (with 9 per cent of the
popular vote). The "vote-splitting" between the Alliance and the
Progressive Conservatives, as well as the normal operation of
the "first-past-the-post" voting system, contributed to the
massive Liberal majority.
One Progressive Conservative MP, Scott Brison, has now
defected directly to the Liberal Party. As an openly gay
politician, Brison claimed he felt uncomfortable with the new
Conservative Party, which now includes the Canadian Alliance
-- with its many social conservatives. However, Brison may have
miscalculated, even in terms of narrowly-conceived self-interest.
The new Conservative Party would probably have been anxious
to prove its open-mindedness to the Canadian public, which
meant that Brison could have been very prominent in it. Though
the Liberals probably did offer all kinds of enticing promises to
get him to defect, it is unlikely he will ever be as prominent in the
Liberal Party as he could have been in the new Conservative
Party. Even if he perceived the prospects of his political career
as relatively poor -- given the comparatively small chances of the
new Conservative Party ever winning a working majority in the
House of Commons -- surely there is something to be said for
maintaining one's political loyalties even under adversity. Neither
turncoats nor "fair-weather friends" enjoy much respect in
politics.
One should also consider the social context of Canada, where
Brison's remaining in the Conservative Party would have been
helpful in deflecting at least some of the criticism that the
Canadian Alliance has regularily received. It should be pointed
out that Canada today may be seen as combining the most liberal
aspects of America and Europe -- indeed, it may be the world's
most liberal society. Like some European countries such as the
Netherlands, it is extremely socially-liberal, as demonstrated by
the Canadian federal government's recent acceptance of "same-
sex marriage." Although a vote on the issue will eventually take
place in the Federal Parliament, it will be with direct referral to
the Canadian Supreme Court. What conservative critics call
"judicial activism" is in Canada a comparatively late but now
flourishing development, which only really got underway with the
introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) into
the Canadian Constitution. The Charter, clearly a left-liberal
rather than classical liberal document, essentially enshrined
virtually the entire agenda of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Canada's
left-leaning Liberal Prime Minister from 1968-1984, except for
nine months in 1979-1980) as the highest law of the land. After
Brian Mulroney's huge Progressive Conservative majorities of
1984 and 1988 -- whose record in regard to social and cultural
conservatism was indeed abysmal -- Canada's federal Liberal
Party (headed by Jean Chretien) comfortably won the elections
of 1993, 1997, and 2000.
On the other hand, unlike some European countries, Canada is
characterized by very high rates of immigration, and it has whole-
heartedly embraced multiculturalism, affirmative action (called
"employment equity" in Canada), and diversity with a startling
degree of unidirectional intensity. Canada's official immigration
numbers are more than twice as large as those of the United
States -- per capita -- and are probably among the highest in the
world. With a population of about 30 million persons, Canada
receives every year about a quarter-million immigrants, most of
whom end up in large cities, especially Toronto, Vancouver, or
Montreal.
At the same time, Canada has now embraced some of the more
negative aspects of American society -- such as the excesses of
pop-culture, the trend to political-correctness, and growing
litigiousness. However, it lacks many aspects of America that
may temper the aforementioned trends.
In Canada, for example, the government accounts for about half
of the GDP. (In contrast to about a third in the United States.)
Taxes are very high, relative to the United States. The Canadian
medical system is stringently socialized to an extent unheard of in
the United States. Canada's gun control laws are also extremely
strict. Unlike the United States, fundamentalist Christianity plays
virtually no role in Canada. The debate about abortion and many
other social issues is considered effectively closed.
In another extreme contrast to the United States, Canada has
virtually no military (the *entire* armed forces, including army,
navy, air force, and reserves, number about 58,000 men and
women) and there is major disdain throughout much of Canadian
society (and especially in elite opinion) towards the military.
Canada's security provisions, refugee-policy, and control of its
borders are also extremely lackadaisical, relative to what now
appears to be the emerging trend in the United States.
Canadians appear to be characterized both today and in their
earlier history by an unusual deference to governmental authority.
Before 1965, Canada was probably a substantively more
conservative society than the United States, but now, when the
paradigm at the top has been fundamentally altered -- in the
wake of the "Trudeau revolution" -- most Canadians are willing
to follow the new, politically-correct line from Ottawa. There is
virtually no heritage of independence, self-reliance, or belief in
rambunctious free speech in Canada. Indeed, Canadian officials
point proudly to their laws against "hate-speech" as highly
necessary. They say they do not have "the American hang-ups"
about restricting freedom of speech.
What may be concluded from the combination of points made
above is that right-of-centre viewpoints are rather rarely publicly
seen or heard in Canada (except perhaps in the Western
Canadian province of Alberta). It could be argued that, given the
left-liberal predominance in the Canadian media (especially in the
taxpayer-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation -- CBC),
in the education system (from daycare to universities), in the
judiciary and justice system, in the government bureaucracies, in
so-called high culture (typified by government-subsidized
"CanLit"), in North American pop-culture and "youth culture," in
the big Canadian banks and corporations, and (on most issues)
in the leaderships of the main churches in Canada, any existing
right-of-centre tendencies are being continually ground down.
There is also the panoply of special interest groups, who receive
extensive government and some corporate funding.
Left-liberals have tried to maintain the centre-right parties in
Canada today in as eviscerated a shape as possible, building up
the federal Progressive Conservatives at the expense of the
Canadian Alliance, and bleaching out substantively conservative
thinking as far as possible from both parties. It could be argued
that, by Canadian standards, many of the more liberal
Republicans or more conservative Democrats in the U.S., would
have probably been placed on the supposed "hard right" of the
Canadian Reform Party. Even as elections come and go, the
long-term trend is mostly towards the ever-intensifying
undermining of substantively conservative impulses in Canada.
The egregious, isolated comments of a few cranky Reform or
Alliance MPs (such as the recent rant against gays by the
hitherto little-known Larry Spencer -- who almost immediately
profusely apologized for his statements, who was almost
immediately fired by Canadian Alliance Leader Stephen Harper,
and which has clearly amounted to political suicide for Spencer)
should not be allowed to distort one's perception of the political
spectrum in Canada today. David Montgomery had earlier
written in *The Washington Post*, that "...those sly Canadians
have redefined their entire nation as Berkeley North."
In the last decade (presumably in reaction to the collapse of
Soviet Communism) left-liberalism has also clearly become far
more willing to concede some major fiscal and economic issues
to the "managerial Right"
-- while continuing a ferocious struggle against any more
substantive conservatism. It appears that, in the main, only "fiscal
conservatism" is permissible in Canada.
The new Conservative Party will make little headway in the teeth
of a hostile social, cultural, and political climate, unless it
endeavours to give encouragement to the creation of some kind
of infrastructures where more intellectual explorations of right-
wing ideas and philosophies can take place in Canada. What is
especially needed in Canada for conservatives is a broadly right-
of-centre magazine which could serve a mobilizing role similar to
the early years of *National Review* in the United States, as
well as an academic outreach body along the lines of the
Intercollegiate Studies Institute in the United States (which
publishes scholarly quarterlies and books, as well as offering
substantial scholarships). The ISI embodies a very reflective and
serious conservatism which moves far beyond day-to-day policy
issues and merely fiscal and economic conservatism (while not
being explicitly tied to any one religion or denomination).
Perhaps the Centre for Cultural Renewal in Ottawa could
eventually evolve into serving a similar role in Canada.
Another positive development would be the emergence of some
major, more traditionally-oriented, private colleges and
universities in Canada -- as opposed to the situation today,
where there are virtually no such institutions in Canada -- Trinity
Western University in British Columbia, and Redeemer College
University in Ontario being the two best-known exceptions.
Tradition-minded Roman Catholics in Ontario have carried out
efforts to establish a private liberal arts college in Ontario, for
which Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy near Ottawa is
hoped to be the nucleus.
Today in Canada, there are numerous, left-wing, extra-
parliamentary infrastructures, whose funding (most of which
comes from the federal, provincial, and major-municipal
governments) outweighs that of putatively right-wing
infrastructures such as the National Citizens' Coalition and the
Fraser Institute (who rely strictly on private donations -- and are
almost entirely focussed on economic and fiscal issues) by
*astronomical* factors. The effectiveness of these left-wing
infrastructures has contributed to the huge intellectual influence of
the New Democratic Party (Canada's social democratic party)
particularly on the Liberal Party, although the NDP currently
holds a mere fourteen seats in the federal Parliament (out of a
total of 301 seats). It may be remembered that Trudeau was a
former NDP member, and some have indeed suggested that he
"hijacked" a somewhat more traditionalist and centrist Liberal
Party in a radical direction. Perhaps the ascent of former finance
minister Paul Martin, Jr., to the leadership of the Liberal Party
and the office of Prime Minister will afford a chance for the
emergence of a more centrist Liberal Party -- although the extent
to which large numbers of persons in Canadian society
(especially in the intellectual classes) are utterly captivated by
and beholden to ideas of left-wing provenance cannot be
underestimated. It is only the building up of infrastructures of a
serious intellectual Right in Canada that could make a difference
in this regard.
The current-day Canadian situation -- of near-total left-liberal
intellectual hegemony, of very little authentic academic or
journalistic debate, and of little hope that a centre-right party will
ever unseat the Liberals at the federal level -- cannot be
described as offering prospects for a truly humane future for
Canada. There is certainly no intellectual balancing of Left and
Right, and very little possibility of alternation at the federal level
between left-leaning and conservative parties, in Canada today.
Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher,
published in Alberta Report, Calgary Herald, New Brunswick
Reader, Telos, and The World & I, among others. An article of
his about Canada was reprinted in Annual
Editions: World Politics, 1998-99 (Dushkin/McGraw-Hill,
1998).
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com